A Matter of Time 06 - But For You (MM)

by Mary Calmes

  Once there, I excused myself when I saw Aaron Sutter’s number come up on my display.

  “And?” He muttered on his end.

  “What? I figured you’d call and tell me.” I defended myself.

  He sighed deeply.

  “That bad? I thought you guys had—”

  “He had to go work on a task force thing in New York.”

  “Yeah, I know. I figured that would be good. If you hated him, it would just be done. If you liked him, you could miss him.”

  Silence.

  “Aaron?” He was never quiet or thoughtful, and it was sort of freaking me out.

  “He’s in the closet, you know. Like, no one at work knows he’s gay.”

  “Yeah, well, only your friends know you’re gay. Even your family doesn’t know.”

  “They know.”

  “They suspect. Everyone does. But you’ve never come out to the press or to your parents or your brother. You never go to your big social engagements with a guy on your arm. You and I never arrived together, we never left together. When I showed up on the society pages with you, it was always as your friend. You have amazing friends who would never breathe a word about your personal life. Even Todd, who I hate, or did hate, even him, he—”

  “Todd got married and moved to Connecticut, you know. You’d probably actually like him now.”

  “Don’t get crazy,” I chuckled, remembering his buddy who had always figured me for trash. “I’m just saying, you have good people in your circle, and they would never out you.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So then what?”

  “No, I just… it was nice, you know? He gets it.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “And what?”

  “And Duncan Stiel? What’s the deal?”

  He cleared his throat. “When he gets back, he’s gonna call me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So,” I drew out the word. “You’re not gonna pop up to New York to visit him?”

  “No.” He sounded irritated. “He’s working and I have to fly to Berlin tomorrow to discuss contracts and… things.”

  “Things?”

  “Just—good-bye.”

  “What about your art auction?”

  “I talked to Fallon. You saw the money, right?”

  I had. I didn’t check the business account every day like I did my personal one but I had seen the transfer. “Yeah, but don’t you want to look at what we—”

  “No, you know I trust you. Just do it.”

  He did not sound like himself. “You um, normally try to come on to me, you know.”

  Nothing.

  “Not that this isn’t better, and Sam will certainly be thrilled, but… I actually thought I was doing you a favor and not making your life shitty. I’m sorry that you and Duncan didn’t—”

  “What?”

  “Aaron, did you like Duncan? Did he like you? I mean, what the hell?”

  He cleared his throat, but there was no great outpouring of information.

  “You’re really starting to—”

  “He’s different than I thought.”

  “And you’re different right now than you’ve ever been,” I said, because really, I had never met this man before. For as long as I’d known Aaron he’d been cocky and sure and loud and brash. There had been quiet times, yes; there had been times he tried to get me to move in and see the life he could provide. There had been times he’d tried to change me, make me dependent, make me love him, body and soul. But the man on the phone was unsure, and that was simply not Aaron Sutter.

  “Jory.”

  It was my fault. I broke him. “What can I do?”

  “I… I want to go to New York.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “And so what’s stopping you?” I wanted to know.

  “I don’t want to push if I shouldn’t,” he said as he cleared his throat.

  “Wouldn’t going show interest?”

  “Or compulsive tendencies,” he sighed deeply.

  “So you don’t want to look too eager?”

  “I don’t want to look like I want more than there is.” He explained. “That’s no good.”

  “Okay. May I ask what was said when you guys parted that night?”

  He grunted. “That was slick, or tried to be. Ask what you want to know.”

  “Did you sleep with him?” This was the heart of the matter.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And?”

  “And there is no way in hell I’m telling you what went on in my bedroom.”

  “You always tell.” I was indignant.

  “Not this time.”

  Not this time. “You didn’t use to tell your pals about us.”

  “What in the world does that—”

  “You didn’t,” I cut him off.

  “And so?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “That’s ancient his—”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were special.” He was matter of fact and annoyed at the same time.

  “Did you tell anyone about Duncan?”

  “You’re the only one who knows about me and the detective.”

  Uh-huh. “So he knows who you are, since you took him home with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did that go?” This was getting good and the digging was killing me.

  “He’s in the closet, so am I. He liked that I got it, I appreciated that he did.”

  “So that part was perfect.”

  “It was.” He agreed with me.

  “Oh for crissakes, Aaron, you’re driving me nuts!” I yelled at him. “Do you want to see Duncan again or not?”

  “I—”

  “Aaron!”

  “Fine! Yes, I want to see him! Why the hell do you think I want to go to New York?”

  “What did he say? What did you say? Jesus, what is this, junior high?”

  “He said when he got back, he wanted to see me and he wanted to know if that would be okay?”

  “And you said, hell yeah, Detective, I would love to see you.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Pretty much? “Aaron Sutter, you sound a little flustered.”

  “Yeah.”

  Yeah? “Aaron?”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I threatened him. “Talk to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  Holy. Shit. “Try.”

  “I liked him.”

  “Yeah I got that and so?”

  “And so… I mean he told me everything.”

  “What’s everything?”

  “Just about him, about how he’s been screwing nameless, faceless guys and how there was one guy, a special guy, but it didn’t work because of him.”

  “Because of who?”

  “Duncan. I mean, like I told you, he’s not out and the guy was and so he needed me to understand that and of course I do and you should have seen how relieved he was and… he was just and I want to… shit.”

  “You want to what? Move him in? Lock him in?”

  “He’s the kind of man who needs to belong to one person. You can tell.”

  “Desperation is not sexy.”

  “No, not normally, no.”

  Oh dear God. “But he wants to belong, and you what?”

  The growl was deep.

  “Aaron?”

  “The thought of him just living like he’s been when he so wanted to stay… I… and I don’t even know if… I don’t know.”

  The weight of it, of what I’d done, hit me. I thought I knew people, thought I knew things, but maybe I didn’t, and when all was said and done, Aaron Sutter had turned out to be a friend, someone I could count on.

  “I’m sorry I—”

  “Why would you be sorry? Don’t be sorry yet.”

  I took a breath.

  “I’ll let you know what happens.”


  “When?”

  “When I get back from New York.”

  “So you’re going?”

  “I guess so.”

  And since I had no more advice to give, I shut the hell up and let him hang up on me.

  “J?” Sam was concerned when I reappeared in the living room.

  “Sorry, I had to talk to Aaron.”

  “Oh? And how are he and Duncan getting along?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Sam nodded and then pointed at me. “If that ends in gunfire, it’s all on you.”

  “Really? You think that’s a nice thing to say?”

  “I’m just saying, cop, playboy… how did that make sense in your head?”

  Nothing ever made sense in my head—that was the problem.

  SAM had cancelled fishing with Chaz and Pat, but since making him go to the movies was cruel and unusual punishment, I met the others—Dylan and her two kids; Stuart and his mother, Jessica; Tess and her father, Gordon; my buddy Evan and his two boys, Bryce and Seth—at the movies right after eleven the next morning. It was a production with that many kids—ten in all—to get everyone seated with popcorn and a drink and napkins. Halfway through the movie, Gentry had to pee, but it was more than fine, and since, as Aja had told me, he was on the cusp of being potty trained, when he said he had to go, we went.

  Afterward we took the kids out for lunch and then to a playground close to Dylan’s house. It was nice, all of us sitting and talking. I had not seen Evan in a couple of months, and it was good to catch up. Gordon and Jessica seemed to be hitting it off, and since they were both single parents, I was sort of pleased with myself.

  “You are the love god,” Dylan teased me.

  “I still got it.”

  Evan rolled his eyes, and I took that opportunity to ask about Loudon, his partner, his husband, the man he’d always said he would never find and whom he had been married to for the past eleven years.

  They were made for each other. Evan was sort of a high-strung worrier, and Loudon was calm and grounded. I had seen them in action many a time, and sometimes Evan’s obsessive personality was a good thing—it kept the ball from getting dropped. Other times Loudon reminded him that stopping to breathe and refocus was the thing to do. It was nice to see that their boys, Bryce and Seth, had facets of both. Like Sam and I, Evan and Loudon had adopted, Bryce from Spain and Seth from South Africa.

  As Dylan went to see why Mabel and Mica were hanging upside- down from the monkey bars while Seth counted underneath them, Evan leaned forward and put a hand on my knee. I quickly covered it with my own.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “Hey, uhm, Loudon and I have been talking, and we both agreed that if, heaven forbid, anything ever happened to us, we want you and Sam to take the boys.”

  I panned slowly to see his face.

  “Okay?”

  It was a shock. “Are you sure? I mean, Loudon’s always said how much he worries about Sam’s job, and—”

  “Yeah, but Loudon knows, just like I do, that no one will take better care of them than Sam. He won’t let anything happen to them, and you worry as much as I do.”

  “Why do people keep saying that? I don’t worry.”

  He gave me a look.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Jory. You’re very protective, and I love that. And Sam’s gonna be like a prison guard, and I like that too. I mean, when all the kids get older and they start to run around wild, because if the curse is true and you get a kid just like you—oh honey, how out of control will our kids be?”

  I shuddered to think. “Just, what’s your point?”

  “Sam’s going to be the one we all turn to. He’ll be checking up and ruining parties and putting the fear of God into whomever our kids see and letting those people know that if they mess with them, sell them any drugs, smoke with them, drink with them, that he’ll be there to put a bullet in them.”

  I nodded because it was very possible. Not the actual killing, but the threatening and the fear that Sam Kage could, and would, inspire.

  “And he has all those cop friends, and I’ve met his buddies—Chaz and Pat, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, see, and I’ve met their kids, and they’ve got nice ones, so—”

  “They have mothers, you know, those kids. It’s not just fathering that’s happening.”

  “No, I know, I just mean that they’re law-enforcement types and their kids turned out okay, and since we’re all counting on Sam to watch out even peripherally for our kids, then for sure if Loudon and I both go down in a fiery ball or get hit by a crosstown bus, then you and Sam would be the ones we’d want to step in for us.”

  “But your mom would—”

  “She’s older, Jory, and the kids will need hands-on parenting, two people who can keep up physically as well as anything else.”

  I studied his face and saw only absolute seriousness.

  “I see Hannah and Kola, and they’re weird”—he shrugged— “because you’re weird, but so are mine, and for the same exact reason.

  My boys are going to be messed up a little because Loudon and I are.

  No way around it. You’re a good father. I always figured you would be.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, baby.” He squeezed my knee. “You have the best heart.”

  I sighed deeply. “Okay. Sign me up. It would be an honor to be the guardian of your kids.”

  He nodded. “You don’t have to ask Sam?”

  “Oh no.” I shook my head, turning to look out at the playground, watching Hannah growl at Gentry as she chased him and he laughed and ran. “Sam accepts that kind of responsibility as an honor. It’s the same way he took the news when I told him that Dane and Aja wrote us into their will to be Robbie and Gen’s guardians. He was deeply moved. I mean, they’re trusting him with the most precious part of their lives, their kids. He takes that very seriously.”

  “I know.” Evan patted my leg, smiling at me. “And you guys will do the very best you know how. Can’t ask for better than that.”

  I nodded as he got up to go see what was happening, since Dylan was talking to her daughter, who was upside-down now, and Mica was holding his breath.

  Looking around, I saw Gentry on the ground, twitching every time Hannah pretended to dig into his head with what looked like, the way she was holding her hands, an imaginary knife and fork. I stopped Kola as he ran by me with Stuart and Tess.

  “What is your sister doing?” I asked, pointing her out for him.

  “Oh, eating Gentry’s brains. She’s a zombie.”

  “With utensils?”

  “You always tell her not to use her hands,” he said with a straight face.

  “Oh, yeah, of course.”

  He shrugged and ran away. Moments later, Robbie passed me, howling.

  “And you’re what? A werewolf?”

  He stopped to look at me. “My daddy says there’s no such thing.

  I’m a rabid wolf.”

  Rabid. He was so Dane’s kid, even though he was only four. I nodded. “Carry on.”

  His smile was huge as he raced off. Minutes later Kola was a rabid wolf with him, which made Robbie light up. I was so happy my kids and my brother’s kids got along so well.

  “Mica wants to be an evil scientist when he grows up,” Dylan told me as I sat on top of the monkey bars with her. It was easier to see the whole playground from higher ground, and the kids all thought it was awesome that we could get up there. Of course I had to then inform them that it was bad.

  “You’re an example of what not to do?” Evan asked from below, arms crossed.

  “My life serves as a cautionary tale for many things,” I reminded him.

  “I can’t argue with that.” He shrugged before he walked away.

  “So, spill? Kola’s career goal?” she prodded me.

  “Veterinarian.” I smiled. “At least this week. How about Mab?

  What’s her l
ife goal?”

  “She wants to be a US Marshal.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. Sam said girls can do the same things that boys can. And I love him for that, but I hope to God she grows out of it.”

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  “If I die, though, it’s all over.”

  I turned and squinted at her. “Sorry?”

  She shrugged. “If Chris and I die and you get Mica and Mabel, she’ll be living with her idol at that point. It’ll be game over.”

  “Do you realize how many kids I’ll be raising if all my friends and my brother and his wife all die in a tragic cruise ship disaster?”

  She started chuckling. “Yeah, you better make sure we don’t all vacation together without you.”

  I grunted. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “You do that,” she laughed, and I grabbed hold of her to make sure she didn’t fall off the monkey bars and crack her head open. I didn’t want to have to explain that to her husband.

  SAM had thought that the idea of Duncan and Aaron together was absurd, and then when I told him that two of Kola’s classmates’ parents had traded numbers at the park, Sam had rolled his eyes.

  “What? I remain….” I paused dramatically. “The love god.”

  He waved me over to him. “Come here, love god.”

  I ran but he caught me easily, and when I was under him on the floor in the hall, his eyes sparkling with mischief and heat, I melted.

  “God, I love you.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  “Do you realize how many kids we’ll have to provide for if everyone dies at once?”

  His scowl was fast. “I’m sorry?”

  “Evan and Loudon are making us the legal guardians of their kids.”

  “They don’t even like me!” He was indignant.

  “They love you. Everybody loves you.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since they’ve seen you take care of me, take care of our kids, and love us all with your great big heart. It’s hard not to adore a man that you know is all thunder and lightning on the outside and warm, gooey goodness underneath.”

  It took him a second to process everything I’d said. “I don’t think any of that was a compliment.”

  I laughed myself silly.

  That evening Sam and I made pancakes and eggs and bacon for dinner since we were having brunch the following morning and not a traditional breakfast. I hated having two meals exactly alike back to back. It was fun to watch Sam take requests for shapes of pancakes and then try his damndest to make them.